I meditate almost every morning for 20 minutes.
More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice. (Tools Of Titans)
For me, it’s been getting over that resistance to what I perceived as sort of a “woo-woo new agey” type of thing and the ability to sort of view it as sort of a warm bath for the mind where I’m taking a mini vacation from my own brain in a way. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
I started meditating and gave up meditating many many times because I had the response that you mentioned about type A personalities. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
Learn to slow down. Get lost intentionally. Observe how you judge both yourself and those around you.
I’d be sitting there and I thought that the objective was to quiet my mind. And so when I failed at quieting my mind because I’d be ticking off the todo list or be like “ah that f*cker who said A, B and C to me the other day” and I would just like harp on these ridiculous things and then I’d get pissed and then I’d get pissed that I was pissed… and I would get up and have a cup of coffee and then storm out of the house which didn’t seem like a productive meditative sessions. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
I actually started doing it consistently when I kept it really short and a friend of mine recommended this where I would #1 be comfortable so I would sit down but to avoid back pain, I would lean against the wall, which is very commonly thought of as a big no no. So I was leaning against the wall to keep my back straight and I would listen to one music track, one song every morning, the same song as a cue and I would just pay attention to my breath. I would focus on being an observer of my thoughts but not trying to control them at all. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
All I did was think about my todo list the entire time, that’s fine, as long as I’m paying attention to my breath. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
That non-attachment to an outcome, i.e. controlling my thoughts, was very helpful. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
What I found was that by allowing the thoughts to occur and not judging myself because let’s say I’m thinking about email, or the grocery shopping and the todo or whatever, just letting that happen but getting good at observing it, I was able to then have more emotional awareness which would prevent cognitive biases and bad judgments. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
After meditating consistently for even a week or so, when that anger would start I was better at observing “Tim” as a 3rd person “Oh look at that, Tim is getting angry at something really small and stupid” as opposed to simply becoming angry and then causing problems for myself whether it was just internal or interacting with people. (Conversation with Josh Waitzkin)
I’ve had this aversion to meditation. But when it’s very non-dogmatic, when you’re not trying to control anything, just think of a candle flame, just observe your thoughts and be okay with them. Sit with good posture for this period of time, that’s it. (Conversation with Chase Jarvis)
The physiological or psychological effects are so fascinating, like you said, because you’ll do it for a couple of days and you’re like, whatever. Then you hit this sort of inflection point where you just drop from 200 RPMs to 150. You’re like, “Whoa. Okay. This is different”. The whole week, you’re kind of zenned out. (Conversation with Chase Jarvis)
It’s like this extended period of calm and ease in decision-making. Uncluttered, like you closed every browser on your computer and shut off the anti-virus, and rebooted the whole thing. (Conversation with Chase Jarvis)
Even if it’s for ten minutes a day so that your not in a reactive mode. It’s really a game changer. Physiologically, it had a lot of effects for me as well. When my cortisol level dropped, I was able to lose body fat more easily in my abdomen, for instance. (Conversation with Chase Jarvis)
Observe your thoughts, instead of being constantly the victim of your thoughts.
